A mother young in life will give
her babe the breast until the weaning time.
Then cries and supplications fill her ears-
much frustration, a hearty chorus of tears.
Where has my milky comfort fled,
says the babe, sulking in sorrow's bed.

I heard tell once of another Babe,
soothed at His Mother's breast, quiet and serene,
and destined for a greater sphere than this.
When He was weaned, did He cry
and shake His tiny fist, and rue the day?
Or did He know of what the future held,
that He would nurse at the ***** of his Father,
and hang from Redemption's blessed Tree?